Coronavirus has caused many schools to introduce online learning among students and this is why applications like Zoom are being employed to teach the syllabus efficiently. However, the online platforms have faced problems in the last two weeks as the video conferences were hijacked.

Source: NBC Boston

The FBI in Boston has issued a warning for all the schools as this would cause invasion of privacy for institutions for children. Basically, “Zoom Bombing” happens when a third party who is not invited to a conference appears during the video or voice call and displays hate content or graphic images on the application. Right now, people are more susceptible to such hijacking as along with schools, businesses have also moved their work to the application.

The FBI notified that two schools were compromised due to this in the last two weeks and as more people will use Zoom in the near future, the risk would also increase.

Source: Newark Now

In one case, the online class was interrupted when an unknown individual entered the video chat and screamed abuses and yelled out the teacher’s home address. This was scary and the person still remains anonymous.

In the second video call, a different school was targeted as an unknown individual displayed swastika tattoos during the live teleconference.

Both of these incidents are really disturbing and till the FBI works to catch the culprits, they have released a set of guidelines that could help in keeping the hackers at bay.

• Do not make meetings or classrooms public. In Zoom, there are two options to make a meeting private; require a meeting password or use the waiting room feature and control the admittance of guests.

• Do not share a link to a teleconference or classroom on an unrestricted publicly available social media post. Provide the link directly to specific people.

• Manage screen sharing options. In Zoom, change screen sharing to “Host-Only.”

• Ensure users are using the updated version of remote access/meeting applications. In January 2020, Zoom updated their software. In their security update, the teleconference software provider added passwords by default for meetings and disabled the ability to randomly scan for meetings to join.

• Lastly, ensure that your organization’s telework policy or guide addresses requirements for physical and information security.

So follow these guidelines to keep your classrooms safe.